keithb7

Or this type...They work the same.

Spare parts lying around. I even found one with a glass bowl. As it lays.... If anyone needs a good 23” camshaft I have 2 that need a good home.

There can be resistance. Yes you may not have the arm sitting on the lobe properly. Easy fix. Loosen all 6 spark plugs. Turn fan blade 120 or so degrees. Try re-installing pump. Rinse and repeat. Easy peasy. If you are installing an electric fuel pump, you may need a regulator. A auto power off switch too if you want to be safe.

Does you pump have a lever sticking out of it? It might look like this. The lever rides on a camshaft lobe.

Cool photo of your car in the newspaper. I'm left yearning for more details of the car. If you have some more photos featuring it's big-butt rear end, by all means please post a couple here!

Not s solution but a related story. I had a chirping at idle in my 1938 Plymouth engine. I could not find it. I gave up looking as there seemed to be no harm. Later when I tore the engine down, I found it. Inside the exhaust manifold. The exhaust diverter valve had removed itself from the shaft. It was floating around, bouncing about inside the exhaust manifold. Pretty hard to find that and solve it by searching around & listening.

I just found this thread, late to the party. Cool car. Like many others here I have a couple old Mopars myself. You have stated that you have not yet decided if you are going to release the car back to society, or take on the project. Lots to consider, we understand your dilemma. You can make the car whatever you want. Whenever you want. In terms of taking on a project like this motivation is a big factor. Followed by space, money and time. Possibly in that order of importance depending on your situation. There is nothing wrong with fixing up the rust, but a quality bodywork & paint job may come in at quite a premium. Personally I kind of like the idea of driving around a car that looks like it just came out of the barn. Or just rolled out of a farmer's field. Yet the car has been sorted, all the mechanical systems are dialed-in make it safe, reliable and fun to drive. I've been going over all the mechanicals in my 1938 Plymouth sedan. Full brakes, tranny, rear axle, electrical, and more. The engine is out right now begging for my time. Fully disassembled, all machining done, all rebuild parts secured. The one leg of the stool that is cut short? My time. It vanishes every week. There's this and that to do and more. My spare hours after work banish. With fall quickly approaching my schedule always seems to slow down some. Long winter nights should allow me some time in the garage. If the snow clearing equipment all fires right up this winter. Hopefully, none of that need's major work! And, it doesn't snow 40 out of 60 days in Jan & Feb Lol. I love my '38 Plymouth sedan. I love the experience it has taught me. The one topic I still ponder is the total $ investment. I could spend $80K Canadian building a real nice car. Then find no buyers some day down the road. Yet I carry on with the car as a hobby. I still fix it up, continually making it better. Folks spend $1000's per year on their hobbies with no expected return other than enjoyment. I need to keep that in mind and carry on. I really do love the old car hobby. While progressing through my '38 Plymouth sedan, I bumped into a 1938 Chrysler coupe. It was for sale. Fully restored. A beauty. Restored 25 years ago. Yet only 7,000 miles on the odometer since the full restoration. I know what it costs to build a car like it. It’s a rarely seen car. A real looker. I considered the costs to build this Chrysler. The time. The motivation. All of it. It is a dream car for me. It checked off a lot of the boxes for me. It didn't take me long to make a decision. I bought it last April. It has been an extremely rewarding purchase. Yet, it still needs quite a bit of my time to keep it running and well maintained. It surely sat too much over the past 25 years. There are oil leaks. Fuel system related issues. Brake leak issues. Ignition system issues. On and on. I get through each issue one at a time. Yes the new Chrysler still takes up a fair bit of my time. Don't forget I drive and enjoy it a quite a bit. A lot of pleasure cruises. That too chews up a bunch of time that I want to devote to my '38 Plymouth. When it snows here soon, pleasure cruises will stop. Which gets me back in the garage onto my Plymouth engine reassembly. I get to drive a beautiful car any time I want. At the end of the day my new Chysler probably cost me ¼ of what it would to restore it if I found it as a project car. I feel somewhat spoiled owning 2 old Mopars, yet I know how much work, time and dedication it takes to keep them running. There is not much spoiling going on. Look at any members hands here. All the wrenching can be seen in their hands. Time, space, desire, money...A 4 legged stool over here. So far the stool in my garage is upright and can hold a person up.

Oh the agony! Drives me bonkers when I have a tool or part in my hand, lay it down when the phone rings. Or whatever. 5 mins later it has vanished. Spend 10 mins looking for it. I start questioning my cognitive skills. Am I loosing it? Then voila! It reappears. Right in places that I looked in my search. I swear there is vintage car owner ghost in my garage. Playing games with me. Maybe a previous owner is hanging out while I work on his old car. He doesn’t like where I am going with a certain repair. So he hides my tools. Then he laughs when the puts the tool back, in plain sight, in an easy to find location. I wish he’d do some maintenance while I am at work all day.

There is indeed something appealing about the simple dash and compact gauges design. Ya just don’t see many dashes looking so unique. New vehicles are so dull by comparison.

I can add my .02 its probably pretty long and too wordy. In summary I’d: -compression test first and foremost. Wet and dry test -clean & gap plugs -clean cap & rotor -hook up dwell meter & set points -how old are points & condenser? Plug wires? Consider replacement -inspect all internal distributor wires and fasteners. - hook up vacuum gauge at intake. Note needle movement. Set A/F mixture screw and ignition timing by vacuum. Confirm timing with timing light at front pulley. Monitor spark advance with timing light while revving engine. -Check tappet/valve lash -Set idle speed - check fuel pump pressure -set float If these steps won’t find your problem consider trading it in for a 1 year newer model. Lol. ?

In certain instances 00 or 0 cable can actually be too big. It can be a tight fit getting a large cable off the battery located under the seat. It takes a sharp turn down to travel along the frame. Under the cab.It can rub in this area at the battery box. Quite dangerous if a negative cable rubs thru to the positive ground. I caught mine in time. Rubbing was happening. Someone unaware could have burnt the car into a crispy pile of metal.

Thanks @Plymouthy AdamsI will pull my distributor and inspect everything very closely. Trace every wire right to the key switch.

Yesterday I went on a drive with my wife to a neighboring town. About 60 miles each way. We took our '38 Royal. Hi-way speeds the whole way. The overdrive was fantastic. We cruised between 55-60 mph. Ambient air about 80F or so. Nice day. Car seemed to run fine. I am not quite happy with the carb still. I need to take it off and deep soak and clean of all the passages. It's actually pretty good, but I am getting picky. On the way home the engine stumbled. Then quickly died. In my opinion it was not behaving like it ran out of fuel. It was like the ignition system just gave up. I coasted to the edge of the road. Glancing for a good pull-out. None were within my reach. I straddled the white line on the 4 lane hi-way. Cement barrier on the edge of the shoulder. On a hill. On a turn. Cars coming up from behind at about 60-65 mph. I was in a precarious and dangerous spot. The left side, 14" or so of my car was in the way of traffic. I quickly gave the starter a shot, turned but no fire. I opened the hood, removed the air cleaner and looked down the carb. I cycled the throttle to watch for fuel by way of the accelerator pump. All good. We had fuel. Next I ran to the driver's side. I dug into the distributor cap. Checked all connections and points. All looked good. I used a multi-tool plier that I keep in the glove box. With key on, I pried the points open and closed. We had spark. Hmm. Scratching my head. Got back in the car. I fired it up and it easily started. I proceeded to drive 10 mins to the next gas station. My fuel gauge works fine. I had about ½ tank. At the gas station I threw in about another 5 gallons for good measure. Doubled checked everything in the fuel and ignition system. Fired it up. Then drove 20 mins home without any issues. When I got home, I checked the dwell, distributor timing, fuel pump, set carb idle and A/F mixture screw for good measure. No issues found. The car starts very well, quickly and idles nicely. Weird. I don't believe I had vapor lock going on. It was not that hot out. Plus I had great airflow at 55 mph. Maybe there is a gremlin in there to be found. Maybe a little flake of something, scale, rust, briefly blocked the fuel flow somewhere? Odd. I shall stay close to town for a while here and see if it acts up again. AAA card is in my back pocket. These odd occurrences only seem to happen when my wife is with me. She's a good sport and laughs it off. So far every time, I get us home under the car's own power. This time I cannot say with confidence that due to my experience, I was able to fix the car and get us home. This week I will find and buy at least one bright orange hazard triangle. The ones with reflective tape. So I can put one out on the road behind me, in the event of a breakdown in a bad spot. To warn upcoming, fast moving traffic. All it takes is a distracted driver not paying attention and I could have been...

Linkage rods and some pivot points have adjustments. Threaded rods, nuts, washers. Parts will wear, linkages need adjustment periodically. Rods way out of spec, you may not be able shift at all. Or you may experience partial engagement problems. General wear slop ocurs and the intended full length travel of rods (leading to gears) may not be happening.

Looking great! Sounding great! All’s left is drive it and feel great!

Yup agree. Likely 251. Best to remove the pipe plug above #6 cylider in the head. Get a small pice of wood dowel at the lumber store. Insert in the hole. Loosen spark plugs. Turn over engine by hand. Measure stroke at #6. 4 ¼” = 237 ci 4 ½” = 251 ci 4 ¾” = 265 ci

I like to hook up my dwell meter. Fire up the car. Note dwell degrees. Then I tweak the points. Flash up the engine. Recheck dwell. Adjust if needed. Rinse and repeat until done. Dwell time is important to get a nice hot spark that can jump the air gaps efficiently. I reach in there and tweak the points, leaving distributor in the engine. Its a pretty quick and easy task. If I am replacing points and or the condenser, I agree, pull the distributor. Much easier working on it on the bench.

Varies by each car. Engine condition of tune. Timing. Dwell. Carb settings. Atmospheric and ambient air conditions. Gasoline quality, ethanol, cylinder compression etc. Carb intake airflow. Starter cranking speed. And more. Many variables will effect each owners starting procedures. If you can tell us more, if you are experiencing problems we can help out.

Running non-ethanol fuel helped for me. Add the fuel pump heat shield. A carb base heat plate helps too. Seen here in the pic. The plate must have reliefs cut in it, in the proper places for carb vacuum passages. If they are absent its easy to cut your own to make it right.

The cap, rotor and points are quite common among these old Mopars. It would sure be nice local parts stores stocked them You are quickly learning the fine art of maintaining these old cars. When my wife is present for these little episodes, the pressure to fix it is certainly higher. To get us back home in the car under its own power. It takes time to work out all the little bugs in sn old car. Just driving it, the bugs appear. The more you drive it, and deal with these issues, the better and more reliable the car becomes. I find it challenging and rewarding. I have certainly had a few mechanical issues out on the roads. Every time, the car still got us home. As I learn all these little mechanical lessons, I’ve also learned to spend more time proactively maintaining my cars. Before I head out. Every little thing, I try to get to and sort out.

What year/model car?

Nice. .070 off. You tell them “She’s custom tuned and ported”. ?

I believe Walter saved another company from bankruptcy before Maxwell. Was it Willy’s? Walter started out in the rail road industry. If I recall, he was a mechanical engineer. Did a little stint with Buick too. Enough to see the potential and excitement of the automobile industry. He did very well with the Chrysler line. Then Dodge, and all the rest. Quite an icon in the history records, he is. Still to this day my 83 year old Chrysler car turns heads. Personally I really like the Dodge Bros story. How they made all those parts for Henry Ford. Got paid partially in Ford shares. Later went head to head with Henry as a competitor. Sued Henry for dividends on Ford shares and won. Becoming multi-multi-millionaires. Later the Dodge family and descendants wasted the fortunes. Rose Terrace demolished. Katerina the Great’s pearl necklace split apart and given to friends of the grandkids. The Dodge Kids created quite a stir with their antics. A fairly sad ending for the Dodge family fortune. Yet the ship, steam powered, engines designed by Dodge, still roams the oceans today.

Blower motor stuck on, or wired on full time? Is a blower motor actually blowing hot air into the cab?

“Will not turn over”. Is your Starter not able to crank it over? Or do you mean it will turn over by way of the starter, yet won’t fire and force the crank to turn, on its own without the starter helping it? Sounds like possibly an ignition issue. Are you set up to properly check your spark and timing?